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THE IMPIETY AND ABSURDITY OF 
DUELLING. 




mo 

CHARLESTON 



E, 1944, 



By WILLIAM H. BARNWELL, 

i: cti i St. Peter's Chi 



[ 1 BLI-SH1 D BY REQl EST. 



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CHARLESTON : 
m ( D V.\ W VLK] ! « BURKE, 

NORTH OT THE POST'OFFICICj 

1844. 



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THE IMPIETY AND ABSURDITY OF 
DUELLING. 



SERMON 



PREACHED IN ST. TETERS' CHURCH, CHARLESTON, 



ON THE 9th DAY OF JUNE, 1844. 




By WILLIAM H. BARNWELL, 

Rector of St. Peter's Church, Charleston. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 




CHARLESTON : 

PRINTED BY WALKER & BURKE, 

NORTH OF THE POST-OFFICE, 

1844. 



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6 



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TO 

THE YOUNG MEN OF SOUTH-CAROLINA: 



The following Discourse is affectionately dedicated 
by one who well knows the peculiar temptations to 
which they are exposed, by the evil custom against 
which he would warn them; and who earnestly prays 
that God will make them too brave to resent a 
personal injury — too honorable to fight one whom 
they have injured — too patriotic to seek the life of a 
fellow-citizen — and too pious, to set man's opinion 
above God's law, and maliciously attempt to destroy 
a being whom God has benevolently created. 

With a lively interest in their best welfare, and a 
hope that they may ever evince on the field of moral 
action, the same high prowess and patient fortitude 
which their sires did on the battle-grounds and in the 
prison-ships of the Revolution, 

He subscribes himself, affectionately, 

Their friend and fellow-citizen, 

WM. H. BARNWELL. 



The following Sermon was written under pecu- 
liar disadvantages; but as it was requested for publi- 
cation by those in whose judgment I feel confidence, 
it has not been withheld. 



SERMON 



GEN. IV. 10. 

"And he said what hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto 
me from the ground." 

We have here the arraignment by God, of the first murderer who 
stained this earth with gore. I design to base upon it a few remarks 
respecting a barbarous practice, still too common among us, which 
provokes Jehovah, and defies his law; disturbs the State, and spurns 
its enactments; destroys men, and afflicts their families; while it 
usually brings upon those that engage in it, certain misery, hoth here 
and hereafter. Of course you understand that I refer to Duelling. 
Our beloved State has bled at every pore through this murderous 
custom; some of her noblest sons have fallen its victims; and her 
choicest lives may yet be thrown away at any time, at its demand. 
Shall we do nothing to arrest this monstrous evil? Can religion avail 
nought? Is patriotism vain? Can philanthropy interpose no check? 
Can a mother's or a sister's love impose no restraint? Can manly 
friendship devise no remedy? Can wounded honor, in whose high 
name these outrages are perpetrated, suggest no substitute? But shall 
our posterity, to the latest generation, be subjected to this tyrant cus- 
tom, so heathenish, so impious, so absurd? Shall we tolerate such a 
slander upon the venerable name of honor, as to admit that none can 
justly lay claim to it, but he who is prepared for a personal affront, to 
slay, or be slain by his fellow man? Shall our holy Religion not cry 
aloud with a voice of thunder, against those whose brothers' blood is 
crying out against them, from an innocent but ensanguined soil? Shall 
our boasted patriotism suffer the pride of our State — her jewels — her 
sons — to be turning their weapons with a Cain-like spirit against 
each other, and not interpose the strong arm of her undisputed sove- 
reignty to arrest the evil, and punish the offender? And shall a 
virtuous and indignant public permit its sense of propriety to be out- 
raged, without the most decided reprobation? Let it not be ! but 
looking steadily at the evil in its true character and consequences — 
let us endeavor to devise and to carry into effect some remedy. 



6 THE IMPIETY AND ABSURDITY OF DUELLING. 

In my present remarks, I shall use great plainness of speech, and 
desire to address myself to the hearts and minds of all. All have 
been, or may be, sufferers from the practice: and all should feel an 
interest in its suppression. 

The origin of duelling, like that of murder, with which it is iden- 
tical, may be traced to Cain; for had his peaceful brother resisted 
his violence, a bloody combat must have ensued. Envy and malice 
are its ordinary stimulants; and if the unskilfulness of the combatants, 
or the providence of God, prevents death, temporal and eternal, from 
being the invariable result of the duel, no thanks are due to the par- 
ties engaged. 

That duelling has become less common and fatal of late, may be 
readily admitted, but that it has entirely ceased none can pretend, and 
one fact which induces me to speak the more decidedly and solemnly 
on this subject, is the opinion which seems to gain ground, that even 
professors of religion are not exempted from the obligation of this 
Iron Law. If brethren after the Spirit, instead of forgiving injuries, 
or asking forgiveness, as the case may be, are to be contending with 
carnal, instead of spiritual weapons, it is time for the Ministers of 
God to be repeating God's address to Cain in the text : "What hast 
thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the 
ground." 

I must not however be supposed to imply that there are those pre- 
sent who justify the practice; on the contrary, your Minister knows 
no one among you who may be characterized as a duellist. Still the 
future is unknown; and few present can view duelling with more 
disapprobation than many who have fallen its victims. 

We have pronounced the practice heathenish: and yet nominally chris- 
tian princes are believed to have revived it in civilized Europe ; while 
heathen nations, who know not the true God, have strictly prohibited 
it among their subjects. Yet what more savage and barbarous, than 
for those who bear the form of men, who believe in a future state, 
who belong to the same commonwealth, who are commanded by 
God's laws to love one another, and forbidden by human laws from 
injuring one another; who are bound to existence by many ties, and 
regard death as the close of their probation; to risk in a private 
quarrel their own valuable lives, for the wretched satisfaction of 
taking that of another ? Were death a perpetual sleep, as heathenish 
nations have believed, then, to stake life for life on a personal issue, 
might be the less wondered at; for then, no voice of an angry God is 



THE IMPIETY AND ABSURDITY OF DUELLING. 7 

to be feared — no undone soul of a slaughtered fellow man is to be 
met — no widow's anguish, no orphan's tears are to be answered for — 
no outraged saints are to be faced as God's assessors in judgment, 
testifying against the public violation of divine and human enact- 
ments — no devil and his angels are to be expected inflicting everlasting 
torments upon those who receive the murderer's doom. But to those 
who believe that after death there is a judgment, and that "the wicked 
shall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget God;" what should 
appear more opposed to the whole system of revealed Religion, than 
so cruel a usage? That the worshippers of a Mars, or a Moloch, 
should delight in blood, we might expect: but that the baptized people 
of the crucified Jesus, should tolerate so long an offence like this, 
must be a marvel to the elect Angels, and a joy to the hosts of 
Lucifer. 

We have also called this custom an impious one. Surely none will 
deny this. Is it not impious to bid defiance to a known enactment of 
Jehovah? And is not the offence aggravated by the fact, that it at 
the same time destroys human life, which it is the province and de- 
sign of that ordinance of God, human government, to secure, not only 
in being, but in well being ? 

By the law of God, as well as that of man, the duellist is a mur- 
derer. God's precept, given from Mount Sinai, is plain and strong: 
" Thou shalt not kill." Man's law is equally clear and emphatic: 
" Murder," says Blackstone, " is committed when a person of sound 
memory and discretion killeth any reasonable creature in being, with 
malice aforethought, cither express or implied. Express malice is, 
when one, with a sedate deliberate mind, and formed design, doth 
kill another. This takes in the case of deliberate duelling, where 
both parties meet avowedly with an intent to murder." And this 
distinguished jurist has in this definition followed out the teachings of 
a divine lawgiver. For thus saith the Lord : " If a man smite his 
neighbor with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he is a murderer. 
And if he smite him with a hand weapon of wood, wherewith he may 
die, and he die, he is a murderer. And if he thrust him of hatred, or 
hurl at him, by lying of wait that he die, or in enmity smite him with 
his hand that he die, he that smote him shall surely be put to death, 
for he is a murderer." 

The laws of many of our States stamp the duellist as a murderer; 
and if the Legislature of our own Commonwealth has relaxed upon 
this subject, this only furnishes additional reason for those who respect 



8 THE IMPIETY AND ABSURDITY OF DUELLING. 

her as a mother, to endeavor to induce her to perform her stern, but 
imperious duty. It may be, and is often said, the duellist is not al- 
ways a murderer — his antagonist does not always fall, and even where 
he does fall, malice may not have winged the fatal bullet. But can the 
failure to perpetrate a crime diminish in the sight of God and man the 
moral turpitude ? And can the absence of conscious malice excuse 
him who aims a deadly weapon at his brother's person ? We verily 
believe that the disposition to palliate the duellist's conduct is one 
fruitful cause of its continuance. How can he escape the imputation 
of murder in the estimation of all moral and intelligent beings ? He 
has done one of these two things. He has either maliciously designed 
to destroy the life of a fellow being ; or, without conscious malice has 
pursued a course directly calculated to effect this destruction. If he 
be influenced by malice, then whether he destroys his antagonist or 
not, Jehovah counts him guilty. — " For whosoever hateth his brother 
is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in 
him" — and according to the theory of most civilized nations, (whatever 
their practice may be,) malice aforethought, which is essential to mur- 
der, is implied by the act of a deliberate duel. But if he be not con- 
scious of ill will against his adversary, and goes upon the field simply to 
adjust the point of honor, should man acquit of condemnation one, who for 
the sake of a self-constructed code, puts at peril the lives of two citizens, 
and sets an example of contempt towards both divine and human tri- 
bunals ? Were it not for that undue influence, which the wicked and 
foolish are permitted to exercise over the judgment and conduct of the 
wise and good, would a duellist ever be skreened from trial ? Would 
he often escape sentence ? 

And is it to be supposed that the plea, of no conscious ill-will, can 
avail him at God's Bar, when for the sake of the popular breath, he 
has dared to meet Jehovah, rather than fail to meet an earthly foe ? 
Not his own, but bought with a price, the redeemed creature of the 
Lord God Almighty ; has he a right, for some private wrong, to 
bring both himself and another of God's redeemed creatures within 
the range of deadly weapons, and then say, that there was no ill-will 
in their hearts. Let us have done with such sophistries. Let us call 
things by their right names. Before God and man the duellist is a 
murderer, and until all persons who reverence God, and love their 
country, agree to look upon his course as impious, we may expect 
many valuable lives to be lost. 

But duelling is impious, not only in being murderous, but in that, 



THE IMPIETY AND ABSURDITY OF DUELLING. 9 

it places human opinion above the Divine enactments, and leads those 
who practice it, to fear men rather than God. This is a heinous 
offence. God, who is jealous, is sure to punish it — unless repented of. 
Even the best of men are but blind and erring creatures, often devi- 
ating from their own adopted principles and prescribed course of 
action — and when possessed of the Supreme power, even that of life 
and death, what is man that he should be feared like God ? " Fear not 
them," said the Saviour, "which kill the body, but are not able to kill 
the soul, but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both body and soul 
in hell." Yet this pernicious system diligently inculcates into the minds 
of our sons, that they should dread the stigma of cowardice affixed 
by the false breath of the blasphemer, the slanderer, the Sabbath- 
breaker, the adulterer, and the knave, more than the awful vengeance 
of an insulted God; and teaches them to shrink from the significant shrug 
or sarcastic laugh of the street-lounger, more than from the tremen- 
dous lighting down of Jehovah's arm, which blasts and overwhelms 
those, who have provoked Him to laugh at their calamity, and to mock 
when their fear cometh. How impious such a system ! how impera- 
tive the duty to strive, by all proper means, to overthrow it. I call 
upon every one before me who abhors impiety, to unite in banishing 
from society a usage which thus dethrones Jehovah and His Sovereign 
Law from their rightful place in the human conscience, and sacrile- 
giously sets up there vain man, and his despicable code of false honor. 
But we have also termed duelling absurd. And is it not, both as to 
its theory and its practice ? Its theory is, that one who is ready to 
vindicate with his person his character as a man of honor, is justly en- 
titled to this character, and no matter whether he be a drunkard, or a 
liar, or a cheat, or an adulterer, or a coward, yet if he shrink not from 
this specific test, his reputation for honor can never be questioned, and 
those who refuse to accord it to him may expect his displeasure.-^- 
Now is not this an absurd theory ? Does the fact that a man has given 
and received with firmness the fire of an opponent, prove any thing as 
to his innocence or guilt, of the charges preferred against him ? Is he 
less of a drunkard, or a liar, or a cheat, or an adulterer, or even of a 
coward, because after regular, systematic training, he can face the 
mouth of a pistol without trembling ? The theory then is absurd. It 
illustrates nothing. It settles nothing — that is, nothing as to the point 
of honor involved — though it does illustrate the folly of man, when he 
would contrive a system opposite to God's : and it does settle th& 
insufficiency of the code of honor — a code, often compiled and admin- 
2 



10 THE IMPIETY AND ABSURDITY OF DUELLING. 

istered by those, to whom, except in this technical sense, it would be 
profanation to ascribe a sense of honor. 

And is the practice of duelling less absurd than its theory ? Who 
does not know that it has been reduced by its most accomplished pro- 
fessors to a regular scheme of manoeuvering for conceived advanta- 
ges ? Its diplomacy often occupies weeks — and the ancient chivalry 
would blush at the arts which are now resorted to, to prevent a fair 
trial of the combatants' prowess ; and after all, what more common 
than for the rencontre, even after being honorably adjusted, to lead to 
fresh and more virulent broils growing out of the alleged misconduct 
of one of the parties on the field of battle ? 

But that the absurdity of this practice may be more apparent, we 
proceed to show that the duellist pursues a course which is cowardly 
and dishonorable, and as it is courage and honor, which the custom is 
lauded by its advocates, as serving to promote, if we can succeed in 
making good our positions, we hope the high estimation which it is 
permitted to enjoy in the minds of the unreflecting, will be at once 
undermined, and the practice, like many others of a barbarous age, 
sink forever into merited contempt. 

We take the ground then broadly, that the duellist is a coward. He 
lacks that very courage, that manly spirit which he boasts, and which 
he by this very conduct, endeavors to evince. The very act of con- 
senting to fight a duel, instead of exhibiting his bravery, proves him to 
be just so far defective in this quality ; and the oftener he engages in 
personal combats of this kind, the oftener does he expose his actual 
cowardice, and render himself justly obnoxious to that very galling 
stigma which he fights to avoid. I mean not to say that every one 
who has been or is a duellist, is in all respects, and under all circum- 
stances, a coward, either constitutionally or morally, for unhappily 
some of the most heroic men have allowed themselves to be drawn 
into the practice. But I do mean to say, that just so far as persons 
permit themselves to become involved in duelling, they are acting un- 
der the influence of the fear of man, and are pursuing a course which 
should characterize them as poltrons. For what is more cowardly 
than for one to be driven from the maintenance of his own deliberate 
judgment by the fear of the judgment of others ? Can he be properly 
called brave, who is not ready in conscious integrity, and reliance 
upon God, to abide by the consequences of his own principles and 
conduct, doing right where he sees he has done wrong, and forgiving 
rather than resenting private injuries which he has received ? Now, 



THE I3IPIETY AND ABSURDITY OF DUELLING. 11 

this, the duellist shrinks from, and prefers to risk the lives of two im- 
mortal beings rather than carry out the convictions of his own judg- 
ment, in opposition to the opinion of his worldly associates. 

It may be objected, that we are supposing the duellist to be influ- 
enced exclusively by the opinions of the world, whereas he may be 
prompted in his stern career by the desire of revenge — and in order to 
attain it. may be ready to defy the very public opinion to which he is 
charged with being subservient. But even in such a case, there is 
more cowardice than may at first be supposed : for if revenge be ana- 
lyzed, it will be found to consist in no slight degree, of a fear of future 
injury from the object who is conceived to have inflicted a previous 
wrong; and none will deny that it is far moie brave to forgive an inju- 
ry, and forbear diminishing, by retaliation, the power to repeat it, of 
which he who committed it is possessed, than to seek by his destruc- 
tion, an exemption from its recurrence. Prudence might say — " If I 
revenge not this injury, I shall be subjected to worse" — but a lofty and 
daring courage would exclaim — " I scorn to take revenge — for I 
no more fear any injuries for the future, than I am daunted by any 
that have been already inflicted." So that even where the duellist is 
instigated in his dark career, not by the opinion of others, but by his 
own innate thirst for vengeance, it is obvious that his conduct has 
been influenced by fear. If one be truly and in every respect brave, 
why need he, in a civilized community, ever be engaged in a personal 
combat ? Has he actually or in the conception of another, done a 
wrong ? Let him evince his courage by acknowledging it and ma- 
king amends; and while a timid, skulking spirit shrinks from the 
future consequences of such an acknowledgment, let him not be 
afraid of encountering them calmly. Has he been injured ? and have 
his reasonable and proper efforts to obtain redress proved unavail- 
ing ? Let him attest to the world, as well as to his aggressor, the 
unterrified firmness of his spirit by pursuing the even tenor of his 
duty, in the very face of one who has already attempted, and may at 
any time again attempt, to do him harm. "He that is slow to anger," 
saith the wise man, "is better than the mighty ; and he that ruleth his 
spirit than he that taketh a city." 

And surely none who contend for a mastery over others, should lose 
sight of the apostle's direction: "Be not overcome of evil, but over- 
come evil with good." 

Whatever exceptions may be furnished then, by individual cases, 
we take it to be proved, that whenever an individual, consents to 



12 THE IMPIETY AND ABSURDITY OP DUELLING. 

resort to the duel, for the adjustment of a personal controversy, 
he is acting the part of a coward, and deserves the contempt 
rather than the admiration of all who value true bravery as an 
important element of public or private character. It is related of him 
whom our Union honors as the father of his country, while even des- 
potic governments acknowledge his Republican heroism ; that early 
in life, before Braddock's defeat, in some public controversy with a 
British officer, he received a blow. A duel was of course looked for; 
and when the youthful Washington requested a private interview with 
his opponent, this last, expected a desperate rencontre. Judge then of his 
surprise, when after the obvious struggle of a truly noble soul, subdu- 
ing the evil influences of a false system of honor, which had been early 
imbibed, the future deliverer of his people from British domination, 
frankly acknowledged that his own excited language had provoked 
the blow, and that he felt constrained by a sense of justice to ask for- 
giveness. The foe was melted to a friend. And if there be any who 
suppose that when a short time afterwards on the Monongahela, he 
bared so freely his person to the deadly rifle of the Indian, and co- 
vered himself with martial glory, or that subsequently, in the war of the 
Revolution, when no danger, however great or near, no power or 
device, of an overwhelming and skilful enemy, no desertion, or luke- 
warmness of his countrymen, seemed to shake in the slightest degree 
the settled fortitude of his manly soul ; if there be any who suppose 
that on any subsequent occasion of his eventful life, the man whom 
his country delights to honor, exhibited more true bravery, than when 
he resisted the force of an evil custom, by undoing his own wrongful 
act, rather than avenging that of his opponent; he knows but little of 
the nature of true courage, and is confounding the mock heroism of a 
bravado, with the genuine daring of a truly brave spirit. 

But we have undertaken to shew that the duellist acts not only a 
cowardly but a dishonorable part. I speak not now of the trickery 
and management which have been interwoven into the system — the 
various devices which those, who boast themselves,as the only men of 
honor, habitually resort to for the purpose of cheating an antagonist 
of his life — but we charge it upon the system itself, that it is essen- 
tially opposed to a true sense of honor. Is not this apparent from the 
case of Washington, already cited ? Had he challenged and fought 
one, whom he felt he had provoked by a previous wrong, would not 
this have been dishonorable ? Is not a sense of justice intimately 
connected with a sense of honor ? And can any thing justify one 



THE IMPIETY AND ABSURDITY OF DUELLING. 13 

who, conscious of having inflicted an injury, refuses to repair it, but 
on the contrary vainly attempts to heal its wound by the infliction of 
another still greater ? It is true that the offer to expose our own 
person to the fire of an antagonist, savors of that self-sacrificing spi- 
rit, which is an element of true honor, — but this is not usually the 
reparation which is in the first place asked for, and is only the al- 
ternative demanded, where a satisfactory explanation or apology is 
refused, and if the ordeal consisted in the one who was conceived to 
have aggrieved the other, submitting to become a target, without 
seeking to add murder to the previous injury, there might be some- 
thing like honor in being ready to atone by our life, for wrongs, which 
the recipient refused to forgive, without such a sacrifice. But when 
a fellow-being conceives himself wronged by our conduct, for us not 
only to refuse to make such reparation as the case properly admits of, 
but to offer him the privilege of taking our life, provided we enjoy the 
opportunity of taking his, is, when properly weighed in the scale of 
true honor, as wretchedly wanting, as when placed in the balance 
of the sanctuary. In illustration of this view, let us examine the case 
already adverted to, that of Charles the V., and Francis the 1st, — a 
case whose influence has been thus graphically described by a living 
writer. " It descended like a mighty torrent from the highest eleva- 
tion of rank, down to the humble vale of private life. Through all 
Europe, the pulse of honor began to throb, and all orders of men 
caught the fever. The nobleman, and the nobleman's servant, the 
general and the common soldier, the lawyer, the merchant, the tailor 
and the hair-dresser, became suddenly inflated with the inspirations 
of honor. The forms of law were disregarded ; every man became 
his own judge, his own protector and avenger, until in this crusade of 
honor the earth smoked with the blood of its miserable inhabitants. 
Much of the best blood of Christendom was shed, many useful lives 
sacrificed, and at some periods war itself had hardly been more de- 
structive, than these perverted contests of honor." Take even that 
royal example of a challenge to personal combat, the pretext for 
which may have been, the wish to save their innocent subjects from 
the consequences of their sovereigns feuds. Can it be supposed that 
true honor would not have dictated as a substitute for such a conflict, 
a sincere and faithful reparation of the mutual injuries conceived to 
form the basis of their quarrel 1 Had the Chevalier de Bayard, known 
to fame as the Knight, " without fear, and without reproach," been 
permitted to arbitrate between his loved sovereign and the German 



14 THE IMPIETY AND ABSURDITY OF DUELLING. 

Emperor, think you he would not have said, colored, though his mind 
was, with the romantic chivalry of his day: " Abandon your jealousies: 
be content with that extent of dominion, and degree of renown, to 
which you are justly entitled. Do mutual justice to each other's 
claims, and involve not Christendom in fruitless wars. Nor vainly 
think to save others by perilling your own persons in single combat. 
True bravery, and true honor, can never consist with envy and injus- 
tice." Such, we may conceive, would have been the award of this 
flower of Europe's chivalry, who, at the battle of Marignan, when 
mortally wounded, seated himself against a tree, with his face to the 
foe, saying, that as he had never in life turned his back from his sove- 
reign's enemies, so in death he would confront them — an example 
which the humblest and weakest Christian would do well to imitate 
as to the spiritual adversaries of his heavenly king. 

We trust then it has been made apparent that duelling, is as much 
opposed to a true sense of honor, as it is to genuine bravery — and 
yet, these are the sentiments it professes to cherish. Must not that 
system be absurd, which defeats the very principles it engages to 
maintain 1 

It would be difficult to find a more striking, yet melancholy instance 
of the pernicious power which this custom possesses in rendering for a 
time irrational, the strongest minds, than that of the gifted and distin- 
guished Alexander Hamilton — the friend and private Secretary of 
Washington — the comrade of his tent, the leading member of his cabi- 
net. He fell, as most of you are aware, in a duel by the hand of Col. Burr. 
But before going to the field, he left in writing a solemn and explicit con- 
demnation of the very course he was about to pursue. Did our limits 
admit of it, we would cite the whole document, for we have always 
regarded it as an evidence of the force of truth, extorting from an in- 
genuous mind an utter reprobation of a course which a false concep- 
tion of honor constrained it to pursue. Yet, surely this should fur- 
nish but little palliation of his offence in deliberately acting contrary 
to the dictates of that inward monitor which the Almighty has estab- 
lished as His vicegerent in the human soul. The document referred 
to may be found in Adams' Moral Philosophy, in the chapter on " du- 
elling." 

It will be seen, that we have not attempted to enter fully into this 
subject, but have only thrown together such remarks as have been nat- 
urally suggested. We have indeed omitted to bring to your notice, 
many facts, and observations of others, with which we are furnished 



THE IMPIETY AND ABSURDITY OF DUELLING. 15 

and which on some other occasion may be offered. We have omitted 
too, to present the subject in an evangelical point of view. We have not 
brought prominently to your minds, the light which should be cast 
upon the enormities of this practice, by that stupendous fact of the 
Christian scheme — Incarnate Deity redeeming His enemies by His 
own blood. We have spoken but little of that blood which speaketh 
better things than that of Abel's; for while his cried aloud from the 
earth against his brother, that proclaims from Heaven, pardon and 
peace, and a full and free justification, even to the Cain-like man- 
slayer, should he repent — nay, offers to make him repent, by opening 
to him a fountain, where even the murderer may be washed white. 
Oh, when I think of Calvary — when my mind dwells upon that scene 
in Jerusalem, when the King of the Jews, the Lord of Glory, was 
rejected by his own people whom he came to save, and set at naught 
by the Gentile Rulers — when the shame and ignominy of his cross 
are remembered, and I pass in imagination with him, with that heavy 
symbol of his disgrace and instrument of his punishment, upon his 
shoulders, through all that mocking city — and reflect, that all this was 
patiently endured for his enemies; and then call to mind that such 
enemies we all of us were, and by nature still are, and that if recon- 
ciled by His death, and made willing subjects by His sweetly con- 
straining grace, we are bound to follow him — to glory in His cross, and 
to become crucified to the world — loving our enemies, blessing them 
that curse us, and doing good to them that hate us. I see 
not how we can look without decided and utter condemnation 
at a system, whose origin is, like murder, one of the first fruits of the 
fall — whose stimulants are envy and revenge, or impious vanity; and 
whose almost invariable result, is the destruction of souls, if not of 
bodies — while from beginning to end, it is utterly at variance with 
the fundamental principle of that Redemption, in which the only 
begotten Son of God died the just for the unjust; and instead of taking 
vengeance for our transgressions, blotted them out as a thick cloud, 
nailing them with his own body to the tree. But I have already 
drawn upon your patience, by exceeding my usual limits. 

Do you ask what remedy I would prescribe for the fearful evil of 
which I have been speaking? I answer, 

First, detest and reprobate the practice — until this be done, no other 
can be completely effectual. So long as the duellist is respected by 
the virtuous, no laws, human, or divine, can effectually suppress the 
custom. We must unite together in one firm and virtuous band, to 



16 THE IMPIETY AND ABSURDITY OF DUELLING. 

cast odium upon a sense of honor, so false and barbarous, as that which 
lies at the very foundation of this custom. We must look at this 
evil, as God looks at it. We must speak of it, as God speaks of h> 
Instead of the duel, and the duellist, let us speak of the act and the 
agent, as the murder and the murderer ! and let us deal with the du- 
ellist as with the highwayman and the assassin. Let woman shudder 
with abhorrent disgust at the sight of him, even as Eve may be con- 
ceived to have shrunk from her first-born, as he returned reeking in 
the blood of Abel. Let the patriot resolutely determine never to coun- 
tenance in any way, the man, who by his practice, sanctions duelling. 
Let the sober citizen turn away with silent censure from the man of 
blood. Above all, let the christian, the follower of the meek and lowly 
Jesus, who prayed for his murderers and died for his enemies — set 
his face like a flint, against the perpetrators and abettors of such 
deeds, and while he "prays for their repentance and conversion, let 
him avoid all social fellowship with them, until they have acknowledged 
their fault, and professed a godly purpose never again to repeat it. 

Next. I would urge as that which should always precede, accom- 
pany, and follow, our detestation of this and every other vice — let us 
earnestly pray to God, who is the source of all light and truth, that 
He will enlighten the minds of those who uphold this system, and 
make them see the fearful enormity of its criminality, and lead them 
at once to abhor and abandon it. It is to God that other communi- 
ties, which were once afflicted by the prevalence of this destructive 
evil, owe their deliverance from it; and it becomes us to look to Him 
for a similar reformation among ourselves. 

Next. I would suggest — though aware of the jealousy which some 
feel as to Ministers of the Gospel referring to State affairs — yet I 
would suggest that our Legislature be solemnly called upon, to devise 
and carry into effect, some legal barrier against this evil, which too 
often enters the very halls of legislation, and the courts of justice, and 
pollutes, by a spurious honor, and a time-serving spirit, those who 
should pass and administer the laws, in the fear of God, and of God only. 

But lastly. If our Legislature refuses to act, let each christian and 
virtuous citizen do what he can in his individual capacity. Let him 
refuse to contribute to elevate to any office of honor, profit or trust, the 
advocate and practitioner of duelling — but as he hopes for God's 
blessing upon the administration of public affairs, let it be his effort to 
prevent them from being entrusted to hands, which are ready to 
imbrue themselves, for the slightest private affront, in a brother's blood. 



